All Hail Design’s Greatest Futurist!
SCAD operates campuses in four fascinating locales around the world. No surprise, then, that we are privileged to have some pretty fascinating neighbors. These brilliant neighbors include none other than fashion giant Pierre Cardin, who lives a short walk from SCAD Lacoste, our gloriously picturesque European campus. (Cardin’s rehabilitated château, once belonging to the Marquis de Sade, sits at the very top of the village of Lacoste, surrounded all four seasons of the year by SCAD students sketching the rather unbelievable vistas of the Luberon Valley.)
Cardin loves SCAD students, and our students love and adore the storied designer. He has often invited and hosted our students to the Festival du Château Lacoste, staged in a stone quarry where most of the village’s centuries-old building materials were cut; I fondly recall one memorable festival performance featuring a Beijing Opera production of Marco Polo. (How supremely cosmopolitan for our students to witness a Chinese performance about an Italian explorer, staged in the rural countryside of France!)
A decade ago, SCAD awarded Cardin with an Étoile, in honor of his entrepreneurial legacy in advancing design beyond borders and conventions, and today, we continue to honor Cardin with an extraordinary new exhibition at SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film, curated wholly by SCAD, called Pierre Cardin: Pursuit of the Future. I invite you to visit SCAD Atlanta and experience the prescient vision of this global designer and dear SCAD friend.What I most love about Cardin is that he epitomizes the very definition of a polymath; he’s into everything: fashion, business, yes, yes, of course, and also architecture, furniture design, fragrance, fine art, opera, ballet. The many arcs and interests of his career offer priceless lessons for every student of design.
You do you
Before he apprenticed with an accomplished tailor at the age of 18, Cardin first studied architecture. In 1950, at age 27, he opened his own fashion house and garnered attention for the sculptural qualities of his fashions. As his work evolved, he created more extreme architectonic designs: cylinders, cones, bubble-like spheres, pleated planes, and intersecting lines. He followed this love for structure with a lifetime of fashion that continues to make waves and headlines. Whether you’re a fine artist or a designer, a writer or an entrepreneur, what about your own story distinguishes you among the competition? A childhood among taxidermy and the gothic South? A lifelong fascination with clouds and other skyward shapes? Follow Cardin’s lead: Take that quirk and make it work.
Ignore the rules (when they no longer make sense)
Cardin brought fashion to the masses by launching a prêt-à-porter collection for department stores in 1959 — a move that rocked the couture world and led to his expulsion from the Chambre Syndicale (he was quickly reinstated). Soon after, he became the first couturier to utilize synthetic fabrics and materials and the first to invent his own: Cardine. By 1968, the polymath of fashion had begun licensing products and had founded the Espace Pierre Cardin, a center for arts and events with a theater, meeting rooms, private gardens, and restaurant. These career moves seem unusual now, but at the time — when one was expected to “stay in his lane,” so to speak — they were unprecedented. Cardin consistently innovated to find and cultivate new markets. How does your own profession attempt to narrow your choices? What do others in your discipline say you “can’t” do? Do it.
Swim in the zeitgeist
In the 1950s and 1960s, the future ruled all! The Space Age aesthetic touched nearly every aspect of life, especially in the West, from architecture and advertising to TV programming. While other designers were on autopilot, recycling old looks, Cardin looked to the heavens. Futurism fascinated him and began to influence his silhouettes and his choice in fabrics and materials. His Cosmocorps fashions from 1967 perfectly embody this aesthetic. A blue bodysuit from the collection (come see the original garment at SCAD FASH) stylistically resembles the sci-fi costume designs found in television and films of the period, such as Star Trek. Borrow a page from Cardin’s playbook and look into the heart of the cultural zeitgeist. What does the world care about, right now? What are more and more people talking about? Artificial intelligence? Ecology? Tap into the collective consciousness and seek your inspiration there.
Redraw boundaries
In 1957, Cardin was the first courtier to open a boutique in Japan, hardly a decade after the end of World War II. This diplomatically prescient move opened the door to markets that Western societies thought were closed in the East. In 1971, he was the first to sell ready-to-wear clothing behind the Iron Curtain and the first to host a fashion show in Red Square. Cardin went where only spies dare tread! In 1978, his was the first international brand to reach the Chinese market, followed by runway shows in the Gobi Desert, the Yellow River Stone Forest, and Shanghai. Cardin had faith that these audiences would embrace his work, and they did. Perhaps there’s a market out there for your work that others are ignoring. Cross borders and boundaries. Go where others don’t.
Follow your bliss (even when it takes you in a circle)
In 1992, Cardin purchased a marvelously weird home near Cannes, France. Built by architect Antti Lovag from 1975–1989, the Bubble Palace is the perfect embodiment of Cardin’s fascination with geometry. As he explains, “[I]ts cellular forms have long reflected the outward manifestations of the image of my creations” — a house that perfectly embodies his work. The estate comprises more than 91,000 square feet of 28 bubble-like rooms; the designer outfitted each space with artworks and furniture designed by a range of contemporary artists and hosted a number of parties and fashion shows in the palace. Sometimes the smartest and most creative career move is to come full circle: Cardin started his career with architecture, and at the height of his success, he returned to architecture for inspiration. (Until September, you can see an effervescent simulacra of the Bubble Palace at SCAD FASH.)
Today, at an age when most designers rest on their laurels, Cardin continues to create optimistic, ambitious plans for the future, like designing operatic fashion shows. At one time, he planned to build a tower of light in Venice. I was lucky enough to see the model of the proposed building when I visited with him in Lacoste, and was overcome by a renewed appreciation for his genius and the endless supply of idealism and creative desire that propels him forward. How do you create your own design future? Look to Cardin’s life, and get to work!
